Cassia's POV
I was no longer on the Hogwarts grounds; my captor and I had obviously traveled miles -- perhaps hundreds of miles -- for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone.
Now I was in a dark and overgrown graveyard. The black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to the right. A hill rose above us to the left. I could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside. I hadn't seen the person who brought me here again, and I never knew his identity. He had literally dropped me near a random tombstone and left, not even giving me so much as a second to glimpse his face.
A flash of light and a popping sound to my left alerted me, and I looked just in time to see Harry and Cedric appear, with the Triwizard Cup. Harry's feet slammed into the ground; his legs gave way, and he fell forward. His hand let go of the Triwizard Cup as he rolled onto his stomach. Cedric lay on his side, not too far away from Harry.
I rushed over and helped them up, one at a time. "Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah -- yeah, we're fine..." Harry waved me off.
"Where are we?" Cedric wondered.
I had no idea where exactly this graveyard was located, but it was familiar to me.
Cedric knelt down and examined the cup. "It's a Portkey," he said. "Guys, the cup is a Portkey."
"I've been here before," Harry muttered, barely audible. He had just said what I was thinking.
"So have I," I added. "It was in our dreams."
There was a cauldron not far from where I was standing. I looked to my left and saw a statue of a hooded figure with a sickle, standing near a massive gravestone that had old writing on it. I edged closer to see what the writing said, and my eyes widened when I saw all of the names written on it shared one surname; "Riddle". This was really, really bad.
Without warning, my scar exploded in pain. It was agony such as I had never felt in all my life. I clutched my forehead with my free hand. My knees buckled; I was on the ground and I could see nothing at all. It felt as if my face were about to split open. Harry went down beside me, clutching his forehead as the same thing happened to him.
Cedric ran over, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Love, what's wrong?"
"Ceddy, you have to get back to the cup," I managed to say through the pain.
He looked confused. "What are you talking about?"
"You heard her, get back to the cup!" Harry grunted in pain.
A fire was magically lit under the cauldron, quickly bringing the water inside it to an angry boil.
Looking up, I saw an all-too-familiar face appear. The man who had betrayed mine and Harry's parents. Wormtail, aka Peter Pettigrew. From the way he was walking and holding his arms, I could tell he was carrying something. I saw that it looked like a baby...or was it nothing but a bundle of robes?
Cedric stood up, pointing his wand at Wormtail. "Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded.
"Kill the spare," a high, cold voice hissed from inside the bundle.
Wormtail screeched the words to the night. "Avada Kedavra!"
Despite the horrible pain in my scar, I somehow managed to push Cedric out of the way, the green light of the Killing Curse missing him by inches. If that's not a close call, then I don't know what is.
Angry at Wormtail for trying to kill the man I loved, I fired a spell at him in return. "Expelliarmus!" His wand flew into my left hand. "Hold this," I whispered to Harry as I thrust my wand into his hand.
"Cassia, what -- what are you..." Harry sputtered.
I snapped Wormtail's wand over my knee, breaking it in two, and threw the pieces onto the ground.
Wormtail gazed in the direction I had thrown the pieces of his broken wand, and then down at the bundle he was holding. He started to kneel to the ground, but the same cold voice from before spoke again.
"Forget about your wand, you blithering idiot! Take mine and do what I have commanded you! Do it! Now!" it ordered.
"Y-Y-Yes, M-My Lord," Wormtail stammered. He hastily unwrapped the bundle and dropped it into the cauldron.
I caught a quick glimpse of what was in the bundle of robesbefore he threw it in, and I have to say, I wish I hadn't. The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that I had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face -- no child alive ever had a face like that -- flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes. As the creature hit the water, there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; I heard its frail body hit the bottom with a thud.
While Wormtail went looking for the wand belonging to his "Lord", I took advantage of the opportunity and pulled Cedric behind one of the biggest gravestones I saw. It wasn't quite as big as the Riddles' gravestone, but it'd be enough to conceal Cedric from sight.
"W-What's going on? Who was that?" Cedric asked, trying to peer out at Wormtail.
I pulled him back down. "Shh! That's Wormtail."
"The guy who told Voldemort where your parents were hiding?" Cedric questioned.
"Sadly," I admitted, before looking back at Wormtail to see him still fumbling as he tried to find his master's wand. I put both my hands on Cedric's shoulders. "Cedric, you have to get out of here. Now. You can use a nonverbal Summoning Charm to get the cup. Go back to the castle and tell Dumbledore what happened. He'll be able to help. Go, now, before Wormtail gets his hands on the wand!"
"No, Cassia," he refused. "I'm not leaving you or Harry behind.
"Cedric, I can't let you get yourself killed. I almost lost you once already," I insisted.
My brother's grunts and the sound of stone moving alerted us. I poked my head out from behind the tombstone to see Wormtail had his master's wand and was forcing Harry into the hooded statue's hold. Something had to be done, and fast.
"Stay here," I whispered to Cedric. "If I'm not back in ten seconds, get to the cup and go back to Hogwarts for help." I rushed over to Harry and tried to free him from the statue holding him in place, but I couldn't. To make things even worse, Wormtail hit me with a stunning spell, sending me flying backwards into another gravestone across the way. I hit my head on the stone behind me, which only added to the already-worsening pain I was feeling. My vision became a little blurry and I felt myself drifting in and out of consciousness.
Cedric's POV
Things weren't looking good for us. Harry was held against a statue, and I guessed Cassia had just gotten a concussion from when Wormtail knocked her backwards. She definitely had two of the warning signs; dizziness and almost falling unconscious every so often.
Wormtail was now speaking. His voice shook; he seemed frightened beyond his wits. He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night, "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son." He levitated a bone sitting by the Riddles' grave and guided it to drop into the cauldron, which gave a hiss as the bone hit the water. The boiling water inside the cauldron hissed, sending sparks in all directions, turning a poisonous-looking blue.
And now Wormtail was whimpering. He pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his Cloak. His voice broke into petrified sobs.
"Flesh of the servant, willingly...sacrificed, you will revive your master." He stretched his right hand out in front of him -- the hand with the missing finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand and swung it upward.
I realized what Wormtail was about to do a second before it happened -- I looked away, clamping my hands over my ears, but I couldn't block out the scream that pierced the night. A sickening splash followed as Wormtail's hand dropped into the cauldron.
The potion had turned a burning red; the light of it shone across my brown eyes.
Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony as he staggered up to Harry. "B-Blood of the enemies...forcibly taken...you will...resurrect your foe,"
Harry could do nothing to prevent it. The stone handle of the statue's sickle left him immbobilized.
I saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtail's remaining hand. Its point penetrated the crook of Harry's right arm, making a deep cut, causing Harry to emit a horrid scream of pain. Blood seeped down the sleeve of his shirt. Wormtail, still panting with pain, fumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Harry's cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it. Then he went to Cassia and made a similar cut, taking the same amount of blood.
He staggered back to the cauldron with their blood. "The Dark Lord...shall rise...again," he said as he poured the blood into the cauldron. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Wormtail, his job done, dropped to his knees beside the cauldron, then slumped sideways and lay on the ground, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm, gasping and sobbing.
The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness.
The deformed creature rose up out of the cauldron, taking the form of a thin man. Billowing clouds of black smoke engulfed him, turning into robes to cover his body. The man slowly floated to the ground, in front of the cauldron, and passed his hands over his face as features began to show. Before long, I was staring at the man who had murdered countless innocent people. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's, with slits for nostrils...
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
Barefoot, he walked over to the cowardly man who had helped restore him to his body.
Wormtail's robes were shining with blood now; he had wrapped the stump of his arm in them.
"My wand, Wormtail," Voldemort requested.
Wormtail fumbled in his pocket for a few moments, before handing him a skeletal-looking wand.
"Hold out your arm," Voldemort said lazily.
"Oh, Master...thank you, Master..." Wormtail extended the bleeding stump.
"The other arm, Wormtail!" Voldemort hissed.
Wormtail retracted his bleeding stump and held out his left arm. Voldemort forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, and I saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo of a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth. I remembered the image from when it had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup; the Dark Mark. Seeing it again frightened me more than I cared to admit. Voldemort examined it carefully, ignoring Wormtail's uncontrollable weeping.
The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks, as wizards Apparated into the graveyard, standing in a circle around the Dark Lord. All of them were hooded and masked.
"Welcome, my friends," Voldemort greeted them. "Thirteen years it's been, and here you stand before me as though it were only yesterday. I confess myself...disappointed. Not one of you tried to find me." He made his way around the ring of Death Eaters, ripping away their silver masks and forcing them to the ground.
"Crabbe!"
"MacNair!"
"Goyle!"
Only one was left standing.
"Not even you, Lucius." Voldemort pulled off the last Death Eater's mask.
Instead of collapsing, Lucius Malfoy dropped to his knees. "My Lord, had I detected any sign, or even a whisper of your whereabouts-" he pleaded.
"There were signs, my slippery friend, and more than whispers," Voldemort remarked.
"I assure you, I have never renounced the old ways," Lucius persisted. "The face I have been obliged to present each day since your absence, that is my true mask."
"I returned," Wormtail spoke up.
Voldemort turned back to him. "Out of fear, not loyalty," he corrected. "Still, you you have proven yourself useful these past few months, Wormtail." He pointed his wand at Wormtail's bloody stump, and a silver hand formed where his three-fingered hand once was, attached seamlessly to his arm, as though he were wearing a dazzling glove.
Wormtail was awestruck. "Oh, Master...t-thank you..."
Voldemort reached a large gap in the circle, and he stood surveying it with his blank, red eyes, as though he could see people standing there. "And here we have six missing Death Eaters...three dead in my service. One, too cowardly to return...he will pay. One, who I believe has left me forever...he will be killed, of course...and one, who remains my most faithful servant, and who had already reentered my service."
Cassia's words popped into my head. Go back to the cup. Tell Dumbledore what happened. He'll be able to help. I crept my way from gravestone to gravestone, until I was right behind the one holding Harry. The Triwizard Cup sat a little ways away from me. Aiming my wand at it, I prepared to cast a nonverbal Summoning Charm, but was stopped by one of the Death Eaters grabbing my arm and dragging me into the middle of their circle.
"My Lord," Lucius Malfoy spoke. He'd been the one to grab me. "I found this blood traitor sneaking around, trying to escape, judging by the way he was holding his wand."
Voldemort's red eyes pierced down into my soul. "It seems that the spare is still alive," he hissed.
"M-Master, t-the girl was m-much faster," Wormtail stuttered in fear.
"Your punishment will come in due time, Wormtail. But for now..." Voldemort looked at me again. "Such a handsome boy." He aimed his wand at my heart. I struggled against Lucius, but he had a tight grip on me. Just before Voldemort could open his mouth and say the spell that would end my life, a fireball came out of nowhere and hit him in the arm from behind. The Dark Lord screeched in pain, clutching his arm, which was now sporting possibly a second or third-degree burn. Everyone turned around to see who had fired. My heart leapt for joy once I saw it was Cassia.
"Leave my boyfriend alone, SnakeFace," she snapped, keeping her wand raised.
Cassia's POV
Voldemort grinned maliciously. "Ah, Cassia, I'd almost forgotten you were here," he said, "And Harry..." He glanced over at where Harry was held in place by the statue marking the Riddles' grave. "...standing on the bones of my father. I'd introduce you two, but word has it you're almost as famous as me these days."
"Leave then alone," I demanded, "and I might consider letting you all walk away in one piece. You have no idea who you're dealing with." I was still a little dizzy and my head was killing me, but I refused to let my guard down just for that.
"Oh, but I do," Voldemort contradicted. "The Children Who Lived. How lies have fed your legend. Shall I reveal what happened that night? Shall I divulge how I truly lost my powers?" He spoke to all of the Death Eaters gathered before him. "It was love. You see, when dear, sweet Lily Potter gave her life for her twin children, she provided the ultimate protection. I could not touch them. But that was old magic, something I should have foreseen. No matter. Times have changed." In a split second, he was right in front of Harry, with one arm outstretched. "I can touch you now." He pressed a fingertip into Harry's scar, causing Harry to scream in agony, and me to scream as well, because I could feel his pain.
"Astonishing what a few drops of yours and Cassia's blood will do..." Voldemort remarked, before casting a nonverbal spell to make the statue release Harry, who tumbled to the ground. "Pick up your wand, Harry!"
Harry scrambled to grab his wand.
"I said pick it up!" Voldemort snapped. "Get up! Get up!"
I rushed over to Harry and helped him to his feet once he got his wand. "Thanks..." he whispered.
Voldemort made eye contact with both of us. "You've both been taught how to duel, I presume."
At these words, I remembered, as though from a former life, the dueling club at Hogwarts I had attended just two years ago. Except, all Harry and I had learned there was the Disarming Spell, "Expelliarmus"...and I had barely mastered "Stupefy", and what use would it be to deprive Voldemort of his wand or stun him, even if we could, when we were surrounded by Death Eaters, outnumbered by at least thirty to three? Neither Harry nor myself had learned anything else that could possibly fit us for this. What made things worse was that Cedric's life was on the line.
"First, we bow to each other," Voldemort said, bending a little, but keeping his snakelike face upturned to Harry and I. "Come now, children, the niceties must be observed. Dumbledore wouldn't want you to forget your manners. Bow to death."
The Death Eaters were laughing again. Voldemort's lipless mouth was smiling.
Neither of us bowed. We would not let Voldemort play with us before killing us. We were not going to give him that satisfaction.
"I said bow!" Voldemort demanded, raising his wand--and Harry's spine curved as though a huge, invisible hand were bending him ruthlessly forward. Voldemort raised his wand at me, and I too was forced to bend painfully forward in the same manner, with the Death Eaters laughing harder than ever. With a sweep of his arm, we were both knocked to the ground as if someone had pulled a rug from under our feet. Voldemort's wand was aimed at Harry. "And now...Crucio!"
But I rolled in front of Harry and took the curse for him. The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that I no longer knew where I was. White-hot knives were piercing every inch of my skin, my head was surely going to burst with pain, I was screaming more loudly than I'd ever screamed in my life.
"Cassia!" I heard Harry exclaim as he rushed to my aid.
"Crucio!"
Another wave of excruciating pain hit me.
"That's it, children. Your parents would be proud, especially your filthy Muggle mother," Voldemort sneered.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry yelled, aiming a Disarming Spell at Voldemort, only for it to be blocked with a wave of the hand.
Voldemort knelt to our level. "I'm going to kill you, Harry and Cassia Potter. I'm going to destroy you," he told us. "After tonight, no one will ever again question my powers. If they speak of tonight, they will only talk of how you begged for death, and I, being the merciful lord...obliged."
Harry wrapped an arm around me and helped me to my feet, pulling me back behind the Riddles' grave, a Killing Curse narrowly missing us.
"Don't you turn your back on me, children!" Voldemort demanded. "I want you to look at me when I kill you! I want to see the light leave your eyes!"
Harry and I looked, knowingly, at each other. If it's a duel Voldemort wants, he'll get one. One at a time, we stepped out from behind the gravestone.
"Have it your way," Harry said. We raised our wands.
As Harry and I shouted, "Expelliarmus!", Voldemort cried, "Avada Kedavra!"
A jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand just as two jets of red light blasted from mine and Harry's. They met in midair and suddenly, my wand was vibrating as though an electric charge were surging through it; my hand seized up around it; I couldn't have released it if I wanted to. A narrow beam of light connected the two wands, neither red nor green, but bright, deep gold. Following the beam with an astonished gaze on each of our faces, Harry and I saw that Voldemort's long white fingers too were gripping a wand that was shaking and vibrating.
The golden thread connecting mine, Harry's and Voldemort splintered; though the wands remained connected, a thousand more beams arched high above, crisscrossing all around us, until we were enclosed in a golden, dome-shaped web, a cage of light, beyond which the Death Eaters circled like jackals, their cries strangely muffled now.
"Do nothing! They are mine to finish!" Voldemort cried, stopping them from intervening. A shriek came from his wand, followed by a silvery wisp of light, which drifted to our side, taking the form of the Muggle man whom Harry and I had seen murdered in our nightmare the night before the World Cup. Two more shrieks, and two more silvery wisps appeared, coming to stand on either side of us as they took the form of a man and a woman. The woman looked almost exactly like me, while the man was almost a splitting image of Harry. It was our parents!
"Harry, Cassia, when the connection is broken, you must get back to the Portkey," Dad instructed us. "We can linger for a moment to give you some time, but only a moment. Do you understand?"
Both of us nodded without hesitation.
Dad's spirit glanced from Cedric to me, and he smiled. "You've found a good man, Cassia. He loves you so much, and I see how happy you are with him," he said, forcing some tears to fall from my eyes.
"Daddy..." I whispered.
"I want you to promise something, for both your mother and I," he requested.
A few more tears streamed down my cheeks. "Anything..."
"Never let him slip through your fingers. Men as kind and caring as Cedric are few and far between," he told me.
"I promise..." I choked out, nodding my head in affirmation, before looking over at my mother.
"Let go," Mum told Harry and I. "My darlings, you're ready..."
Harry and I fought to break the connection, to pull our wands back, but we were having quite a bit of difficulty.
"Let go! Let go!" Mum said.
After some struggling, we were finally able to break the connection. I saw the spirits of my parents and the Muggle Man swarm Voldemort and his accomplices. The distraction allowed Cedric to get away from Lucius Malfoy's grasp, and he all but ran back to us.
"Accio!" Harry yelled, pointing his wand at the Triwizard Cup. It flew into the air and soared toward us. Harry caught it by the handle. I heard Voldemort's scream of fury at the same moment that I felt the jerk behind my navel that meant the Portkey had worked. It was speeding us away in a whirl of wind and color...we were going back.